Jose Baez said he needed a new intense activity. A torn ACL, MCL and meniscus meant the former offensive lineman had to improvise.
Baez traded the gridiron for the weight room, and in just two years he lifted his way into becoming one of the top up-and-coming strongman competitors.
Baez said weightlifting more than filled the football-sized hole left in his heart.
“I said I wasn’t going to play another down of football for the betterment of myself so I chose to hang up the cleats,” Baez said. “I knew I needed to take time to rehab my body and weightlifting was a good way to do that, and I have always liked to lift weights.”
Baez began lifting weights again and posting his workouts to Instagram. Former teammate and SWC offensive line coach Eric Burhop said when he and his roommate and strongman coach Arnell Casteel saw a video of Baez, they were taken back.
“My roommate was impressed when I showed him a video of Jose doing a 315-pound seated overhead press a few years back,” Burhop said. “Coach Casteel and myself kept trying to get him to come try it out. About two years ago Jose and myself went to Strongman Sunday at Deadweight Strength and he was hooked.”
Strongman became the adrenaline fix that Baez was looking for. As a football player, Baez was known for his hard-nose competitive fire. The first word out of SWC football head coach Ed Carberry’s mouth to describe Baez as a player was “tenacious.” This trait translated to his strongman career.
“He was a stay after it kind of guy and very meticulous about his business in preparing for football games, and you see the same thing in the weight room,” Carberry said. “He’s what happens when genetics and hard work comes together.”
Burhop agreed and said Baez’s mental strength also gives him a leg-up on other competitors.
“In a sport where 99.9 percent of the competition is with yourself, Jose is able to bring the best in himself and push through mental barriers,” Baez said. “If he can use his mental fortitude and amazing hips, he has true potential to go as far as he wants.”
Baez did not have the normal start to his strongman career. He surpassed the novice division where most begin and was bumped up to the open division due to the strength he already had.
Baez remembers his first competition as a learning experience. In the first event he followed 10-year strongman competitor Alex Bromley in the log press lift. He got nervous when he saw Bromley lift the heaviest weight right before him, but he eventually settled into the competition.
“I decide to lift the second-heaviest weight to be safe, and this guy grabs the heaviest log right before me, knocks out three reps and wins the event automatically,” said Baez. “I’m sitting there like ‘I don’t want to fail’ with wobbly feet and I’m shaking everywhere. But after I found my confidence, I started tearing things up and felt like I had been there before.”
Baez added that the extra motivation worked, and his performance earned him a reputation in the strongman community.
“I believe I was one or two points from first place,” Baez said. “Everybody just kept telling me to keep going, so I took some bruises, took some losses and from there I think I was on the rise.”
Though his reputation has grown, one thing Baez hasn’t seen rise is the number of Latino strongman competitors. Baez said he hopes he can be an inspiration for more to compete.
“In my experience you see strongman competitors who are European, some really big Americans and you don’t really see the Latin-American community represented a lot,” Baez said. “I feel like if I can show that it can be done and we are strong enough to do it, it can motivate some people to do something incredible.”
Bruises left by his first love have long since healed, and a new love has more than filled the void. While football was able to provide him with an education, Baez’s newest endeavor has given him the chance to inspire and show people the strength of the Latin-American community.
